Note 2342 — BOOK IX. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF FISHES.

Generally supposed, as Cuvier says, to have been the same as the mackerel, or Scomber scombrus of Linnæus, and with very fair reason. From the frequent remarks made on the subject by the Roman poets, we find that it was a very common fish at Rome, of small size, and was in little repute. It was wrapped in paper when exposed for sale, and bad poets were threatened with the mackerel, as they are at the present day with the grocer or butterman; or, as in the time of the Spectator, with the trunk-maker. Thus Persius says, Sat. i. l. 43. “and to leave writings worthy to be preserved in cedar, and verses that dread neither mackerel nor frankincense.” Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ix. c. 2, enumerates this fish among those that are gregarious, and places it in company with the tunny and the pelamis, but states that it is inferior in strength, B. viii. c. 2. Cuvier says, that the mackerel still has names in different parts that are derived from the word “scomber,” they being called “sgombri” at Constantinople, scombri at Venice, and scurmu, scrumiu, and scumbirro in Sicily.